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Schedule change! We are going to the library on Tuesday this week instead of Wednesday to accommodate a split art day with the second grade class. So, please have your student bring their library book back on Tuesday. Thank you! Donation Requests: -disinfecting wipes -healthy individually packaged snacks (for those students who forget snack) Missing Audio book! We are on the great audio book hunt! We are currently missing The Magic Treehouse books 25-29 from the library. If you somehow ended up with it at home (or overnight drivers it might possibly be in your cars) please go ahead and return it to the public library. Thank you so much! Homework for this week: -Read each night for at least 20 minutes -Spelling words (just so nobody is confused, these didn't make it out this past week due to the shorter catch up week, but they will be going out this week!) -Math home connections Math We kicked off our week by reviewing some difficult geometry concepts that our assessments showed we needed a bit more work on. Then, we dove into multiplication! As a class, we came up with a group chart on different groups of things. For example arms, eyes, and ears come in pairs of twos; tricycle wheels in groups of three; points on a star in groups of five. It was fun to hear what the students came up with over their snow day! Then we looked at a hexagon pattern and explored how sometimes we can look at problems as repeated addition, but also as multiplication facts. Listen to your student explain what part of their assessment needed corrections Ask your student to make a few interesting groups of things that we came up with in class Extend the learning by finding repeated addition patterns and turning them into multiplication facts Literacy This week we learned about writing a strong topic sentence in hamburger paragraphs. We learned that the topic sentence introduces the reader to the topic of that paragraph or what it will mainly be about! Then, we practiced writing sentences that add spark to the paragraph and will captivate our reader. Starting topic sentence are often the hardest part, so we used a few sentences starters such as "If...then...," "since," and "when" to hep us get going. Listen to your student explain what a topic sentence is Ask them to name you a few ways we could start a topic sentence Extend the learning by reading some books together as a family to learn about how different authors use topic sentences Expedition We are continuing to revise our bridge writing. The third graders have been meeting individually with me to discuss their changes and make further improvements. We have also begun the art piece of our bridges, we will be using water color and sharpies to make detailed drawings of our bridges. Listen to your student explain how our revising process has been working and how they feel about it (we have been talking a lot about how challenging it can be!) Ask them to describe some revisions they have made to their own writing Extend the learning by practicing drawing bridges together as a family Please let me know if you have any questions or comments!
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I don't think I've ever been so excited to get back to school! Our third graders have had such a crazy last month that the transition back to typical school days will be tough for all. Talking as a family about behavior expectations during school will be a huge help for everyone. We have a lot to get to before the end of January. It will be a rewarding yet challenging experience! Donation Requests: -gallon sized plastic bags (to hep organize our audiobook and word work stations) -healthy individually packaged snacks (for those students who forget snack) Missing Audio book! We are on the great audio book hunt! We are currently missing The Magic Treehouse books 25-29 from the library. If you somehow ended up with it at home (or overnight drivers it might possibly be in your cars) please go ahead and return it to the public library. Thank you so much! Homework for this week: -Read each night for at least 20 minutes -Spelling words Just a quick update for this week, since it was a one day school week: Math On Tuesday, we thankfully were able to do our geometry assessment. Tomorrow we will slowly ease into multiplication by reviewing some geometry components that many students struggled with, doing corrections, and then talking about groups of things! Literacy On Tuesday, we did a quick guided reading group activity. We have been focusing on being able to answer questions from a text that we are reading. We also began to look at word choice using a book called "Two Bad Ants." We listened to the story, created a picture in our mind, and briefly talked about how choosing words carefully will paint a picture in our readers' minds. Expedition It was our very first trip to the computer lab! It was exciting and the students did awesome. I am looking forward to making more trips down there in the coming weeks. Please let me know if you have any questions or comments! Important Dates/Information
-Mon Jan 16 - No School Martin Luther King Jr. Day -Thurs Jan 12 - Fieldwork to St. Johns Bridge *This trip is weather dependent* We will be keeping a close watch on the weather reports, but there is the possibility that this fieldwork will need to be postponed. I will keep you all updated! Homework for this week: -Read each night for at least 20 minutes -Spelling Homework! This week, we will begin spelling homework. A list of 10 words will go home with the students on Tuesday along with a spelling activity menu. Students will pick four activities from the menu to complete over the week. This will begin going home each week every Tuesday and will be due back the following Tuesday. Math We slowly eased back into math this week by reviewing our geometry concepts. The students worked in groups to recall the definitions of our vocabulary words. Then, we categorized the words based on their meanings. For example, we realized that almost all of the shapes we've learned about fall under the word "polygon." We also reviewed line of symmetry and finished drawing on lines of symmetry onto our snowflakes. This week we will wrap up our geometry unit with an assessment and begin multiplication. Ask your student to describe how we categorized our geometry words Listen to your student explain what line of symmetry is Extend the learning by finding the lines of symmetry on objects around the house Literacy This week, we got back into the habit of guided reading groups and our literacy centers. In our reading groups, we practiced answering questions about what we just read. We answered the who, what, when, where, why, and how of our different books. We are almost done with our read aloud book "Woof," each chapter ends on a cliffhanger and has us anxious to know how the book ends! Ask your student to describe what has happened so far in their guided reading group book Listen to your student predict how they think the book Woof will end Extend the learning by reading together at home and then responding to the who, what, when, where, and why questions Expedition This week, we eased back into expedition by first reviewing the different types of bridges and its properties by drawing it. We added this to our bridge wall which serves as a visual representation of all that we have been learning about so far. We used the rest of the week to edit our individual writings about bridges. We are continuing to edit our conclusions and have briefly begun to edit our word choice. Ask your student which drawing they created for our word wall and to describe it Listen to your student explain which categories their bridge falls into on our bridge wall Extend the learning by brainstorming different words that can describe our bridges Please let me know if you have any questions or comments! Important Dates/Information
Happy fourth snow/ice day! Please tell the third graders that I hope they have a safe, warm, and FUN winter break! If they are wondering, let them know that the computer lab will still be there after break so yes, we will still be going! (We were supposed to go on Thursday and it was a highly anticipated event). Also, if Mr. Jeff is okay with it, we can still have our crew celebration :) -Mon Jan 2, NO SCHOOL - New Year's Day Observed -Thurs Jan 12 - Fieldwork to St. Johns Bridge We will be going to Cathedral Park to do some St. Johns Bridge artwork with Ms. Shannon. Hand warmers and a hot beverage will be provided. We will be using a bus and 5 parent chaperones are needed, please let me know by January 5th if you are interested in coming! Homework for winter break: -Enjoy the company of friends and family, have fun! Math In math we did some story problem assessments. We have been learning about some key steps in solving story problems that will help us to show our thinking and make sure we work carefully through the problems. These include showing all of our work and making sure we label our answers. We will continue to work on this after winter break. On Wednesday, we made snowflakes and found lines of symmetry on the flakes.Then later that day, we saw actual snowflakes outside! Ask your student what the steps to solving a story problem are Listen to your student explain what a line of symmetry is Extend the learning by designing more snowflakes at home and finding lines of symmetry Literacy This week, we continued to meet in our guided reading groups, so each group has met with me once. In these groups, we worked on previewing a book and making predictions as to what the story might be about based on the title and short description on the back of the book. Then we took turns reading out loud to each other. Many of us are really excited to read these books! Ask your student what they read with me in guided reading group Listen to your student explain the only times it is okay to interrupt me during guided reading groups (we came up with a silly list) Extend the learning by reading a book together as a family Expedition We are in the editing process of our individual bridge writings. Thank you for all working so hard over the snow days on the writing homework, they all had great paragraphs! On Wednesday, we worked on editing the conclusions of our paragraphs. We discussed the purpose of a conclusion and what makes a strong one. I shared my "recipe" for a strong conclusion (a wrap up sentence starter, a piece of what the paragraph was about, and a personal connection). Then, we began meeting with me for writing conferences. We set this up like waiting at the DMV! As soon as they have finished their editing piece, they grab a ticket. Projected on the board shows what number ticket I'm currently working with. Then, once I finish working with them, they get to hit the next button and it makes a fun "ding!" sound. We love it! Ask your student to tell you what the components of a strong conclusion are Listen to your student explain our new writing conference system Extend the learning by writing a hamburger paragraph about winter break on Please let me know if you have any questions or comments! Important Dates/Information
Happy fourth snow/ice day! Please tell the third graders that I hope they have a safe, warm, and FUN winter break! If they are wondering, let them know that the computer lab will still be there after break so yes, we will still be going! (We were supposed to go on Thursday and it was a highly anticipated event). Also, if Mr. Jeff is okay with it, we can still have our crew celebration :) -Mon Jan 2, NO SCHOOL - New Year's Day Observed -Thurs Jan 12 - Fieldwork to St. Johns Bridge We will be going to Cathedral Park to do some St. Johns Bridge artwork with Ms. Shannon. Hand warmers and a hot beverage will be provided. We will be using a bus and 5 parent chaperones are needed, please let me know by January 5th if you are interested in coming! Homework for winter break: -Enjoy the company of friends and family, have fun! Math In math we did some story problem assessments. We have been learning about some key steps in solving story problems that will help us to show our thinking and make sure we work carefully through the problems. These include showing all of our work and making sure we label our answers. We will continue to work on this after winter break. On Wednesday, we made snowflakes and found lines of symmetry on the flakes.Then later that day, we saw actual snowflakes outside! Ask your student what the steps to solving a story problem are Listen to your student explain what a line of symmetry is Extend the learning by designing more snowflakes at home and finding lines of symmetry Literacy This week, we continued to meet in our guided reading groups, so each group has met with me once. In these groups, we worked on previewing a book and making predictions as to what the story might be about based on the title and short description on the back of the book. Then we took turns reading out loud to each other. Many of us are really excited to read these books! Ask your student what they read with me in guided reading group Listen to your student explain the only times it is okay to interrupt me during guided reading groups (we came up with a silly list) Extend the learning by reading a book together as a family Expedition We are in the editing process of our individual bridge writings. Thank you for all working so hard over the snow days on the writing homework, they all had great paragraphs! On Wednesday, we worked on editing the conclusions of our paragraphs. We discussed the purpose of a conclusion and what makes a strong one. I shared my "recipe" for a strong conclusion (a wrap up sentence starter, a piece of what the paragraph was about, and a personal connection). Then, we began meeting with me for writing conferences. We set this up like waiting at the DMV! As soon as they have finished their editing piece, they grab a ticket. Projected on the board shows what number ticket I'm currently working with. Then, once I finish working with them, they get to hit the next button and it makes a fun "ding!" sound. We love it! Ask your student to tell you what the components of a strong conclusion are Listen to your student explain our new writing conference system Extend the learning by writing a hamburger paragraph about winter break on Please let me know if you have any questions or comments! Important Dates/Information
-Canned Food Drive until Thursday 12/8 we are collecting food for the Elks Lodge (please no glass or expired/perishable foods) The class with the most food collected gets a pizza party! Donation Requests As some of you may have heard, we changed up our seating arrangement in class. Included in this new arrangement is a standing table and a no-table table (just chairs and clipboards or room to work on the ground). So far, this arrangement has been amazing in meeting the needs of all the third graders. Some of us just need to stand or sprawl out on the carpet to learn! To help us, we could use a donation of one stool about 2 feet tall as well as three lap desks. I've included a picture of the type of lap desk we are looking for. Thank you! If you are able to donate, please let me know first before bringing it to school! Homework for this week: -Read each night for at least 20 minutes -Home Connections 4 will be coming home on Monday. We are continuing to work on addition/subtraction fluency and this assignment will help build subtraction fluency Math In math this week, we focused on perimeter and area. We found the perimeter of different quadrilaterals and different objects around the room. Then, we expanded our knowledge into area and found the area of different quadrilaterals using one inch squares. We will continue to work on area throughout this week. Ask your student to define perimeter and area Listen to your student explain how we found the area of different quadrilaterals Extend the learning by calculating the perimeter and area of a room in the house Literacy We spent a lot of literacy this week reading about Portland bridges that we picked to study. Students requested their top 3 bridges and I assigned them keeping in mind their choice, but also trying to cover as many different Portland bridges as possible. We will be doing a close reading of these articles and then writing about the bridges for a class book. So far, we have read the article twice. We found bridge terms we thought were important to know and other vocabulary words that we then defined and wrote down in our journals as a whole class. Ask your student which Portland bridge they were assigned to study Listen to your student explain what type of bridge it is and one interesting thing they have learned so far Extend the learning by visiting their bridge together as a family Expedition While much of our expedition time has been focused around reading about our individual bridges, we also found time to revisit the Astoria-Megler Bridge. We completed a reading as a whole class that described the challenges of building the bridge. Then, we worked on understanding the main idea of the text and found key details that supported the main idea. Many of us were fascinated to hear about the tales of building the bridge! Ask your student what happened as they were building the bridge due to the Thanksgiving Day Storm Listen to your student describe why engineers were hesitant to build the bridge in the first place Extend the learning by reading about how other bridges around the world were built Please let me know if you have any questions or comments! Important Dates/Information
-No School: Wednesday 11/23, Thursday 11/24, Friday 11/25 -Canned Food Drive until Thursday 12/8 we are collecting food for the Elks Lodge (please no glass or expired/perishable foods) -Coat Drive until Friday Dec 2 The first grade class is collecting gently used coats or new coats with a preference for children Homework for this week: -Read each night for at least 20 minutes Math In geometry this week, we learned all about triangles! We broke down the word "triangle" and realized that it means three angles. After looking closer at the different types of angles we realized that there are right angles which look like the corner of a page, acute angles which are smaller than right angles, and obtuse angles which are bigger than right angles. We found angles around the room and practiced identifying the three different types. Then, we applied this knowledge to classifying triangles as either a right triangle, acute triangle, or obtuse triangle. These concepts were challenging for many of us, so we will continue to circle back around to them. Ask your student what the three types of angles are Listen to your student explain what an acute or obtuse angle is Extend the learning by finding angles around the house or neighborhood Literacy We spent much of our literacy time this week writing from the perspective of the St. Johns bridge. We wrote "hamburger paragraphs" which help us write five sentence paragraphs. The first and last sentence of a paragraph should be the topic sentence and conclusion while the meat, cheese, and veggies are the details! Over the course of the week we wrote three paragraphs: one about the history/general information, one about the structure, and one that told a creative story about the bridge. Ask your student to describe what a hamburger paragraph is Listen to your student explain something they learned about the St. Johns Bridge Extend the learning by practicing writing a hamburger paragraph together at home Expedition Our Fort Stevens/Astoria overnight was absolutely amazing. Every single one of the third graders were flexible, compassionate, showed great integrity, and had fun! I can feel how much closer we grew as a class and I am thrilled to carry that over into the classroom. We had to go with the flow and change up a few plans, so we ended up on the beach on Thursday and it was beautiful! We ended the night with smores and songs around the campfire. On Friday, we went to the Columbia River Maritime Museum where we got to explore a lightship. Then, we had lunch at the Astoria Pier (there were sea lions there!!) and sketched the Astoria-Megler bridge. After a quick stop at another viewing place, we drove over the bridge (all 4.1 miles of it!) and had a quick run around break at Fort Columbia in Washington. We all learned so much and had an adventurous time. I am so proud of these third graders! Ask your student to tell you one thing they learned about the Astoria-Megler bridge Listen to your student describe their favorite part of the overnight adventure Extend the learning by writing a hamburger paragraph about the trip with your student Please let me know if you have any questions or comments! Important Dates
-Thursday November 17 to Friday November 18 Fort Stevens Overnight **look out for more information (itinerary, yurt groups, meals, etc) later this week! -No School: Wednesday 11/9, Thursday 11/10, Friday 11/11 Homework for this week: -Read each night for at least 20 minutes **If you chaperoned either the Nature Park or Bridge Tour, please send me any pictures you took. I am trying to put together a gallery on the website. Thank you! Math We focused on two different areas in math this week: continuing our geometry unit as well as categorizing and adding to our bridge graph. As we looked at our bridge data, we wanted to determine which of the three different bridge types held up the most weight. We thought about our first prototype designs and categorized them into either a suspension, beam/girder, or arch bridge. This allowed us to make a new graph with a key that depicts bridge type and weight held. In geometry, we made our own set of Tangrams using just one square! We learned new math vocabulary such as congruent, trapezoid, and parallelogram. Ask your student to describe how we made our own set of Tangrams Listen to your student explain what a trapezoid or parallelogram is Extend the learning by identifying different shapes around the house Literacy We spent literacy time this week with a combination of working on writing and reading to self. Many of the third graders are very invested in different stories that they are writing. We finished up our prewriting process on the St. Johns Bridge and came up with different creative stories about what the bridge might want to tell its reader. A couple examples were that the St. Johns might say the cars tickle its back or that it is jealous of the Steel Bridge for how unique it is. We will soon begin the process of researching and writing about a bridge of our choice. Ask your student what creative story they came up with from the perspective of the St. Johns Bridge Listen to your student describe what has happened so far in our new read aloud book called "Woof" by Spencer Quinn (an OBOB book!) Extend the learning by practicing writing from the perspective of an object at home Expedition Our Portland Bridge Tour was AMAZING! Thank you to all of you for quickly signing the permission slip form, we all loved the opportunity to go inside the operator tower of the Morrison Bridge! We saw the Morrison and Hawthorne lift up as well as learned about the unique qualities of the Steel and Tilikum Crossing. We did quite a bit of walking and I am so proud of how well we all did and how we represented City View. We brought our excitement back into the classroom to discuss what we learned and the three different types of movable bridges. Ms. Stefanie taught a lesson on sorting the Portland Bridges into different categories. Ask your student to tell you their favorite part of the Portland Bridge Tour Listen to your student explain the three different types of movable bridges (bascule, vertical lift, and swing) Extend the learning by watching the following video on the Portland Bridges as a family (it is one of our favorites!) Have your student discuss the structure of the bridges https://youtu.be/-iiSVOXjpxQ Please let me know if you have any questions or comments! Important Dates
-Tuesday November 1 Portland Bridge Tour. We realize this trip is the day after Halloween, but please do not send candy with your student to school. It would be great for them to be their typical energetic selves, but without a sugar crash to follow. Thank you! - Thursday November 17 to Friday November 18 Fort Stevens Overnight Homework for this week: -Read each night for at least 20 minutes -A reading on the St. Johns Bridge will be coming home with your student this week. Please read and discuss it together as a family and return it to school Math This week we began a new unit on geometry. We began by having a discussion about what we think geometry is and what we hope to learn about it. We came to the conclusion that geometry is all about shapes and we had many questions about the definitions of 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional objects. In table groups, we sorted a variety of different shapes into different categories. Some of the categories that we came up with included triangles, circles, rectangles, and also by how many edges and corners the shapes had. We also worked on our addition and subtraction fluency, which is something we will continue to work on throughout the year. Ask your student which addition or subtraction fluency work place they chose to work at Listen to your student name the categories their group came up with Extend the learning by identifying different shapes around the house Literacy We kicked off the prewriting process on the St. Johns Bridge by filling out a graphic organizer as a whole class. We came up with three main points from the reading on the history of the bridge as well as the structure. The task will be to write a story from the perspective of the St. Johns bridge. Some of us chose to practice this task by writing from the perspective of any chosen object. Ask your student what one of the history or structure details was that we wrote down in our graphic organizer Listen to your student describe what our graphic organizer looked like Extend the learning by practicing writing from the perspective of an object at home Expedition This week we began to closely study bridge terminology. We watched three videos and discussed the concepts from each of the videos, even using our hands to demonstrate certain ideas such as tension and compression. Then, we worked in table groups to sort our new vocabulary words into a flow chart. The word sort was on the three main bridge types and the subcategories that branch off of those (ex. one main type is a Suspension Bridge and a subcategory of that is a Cable-Stayed Bridge). This is something that we will continue to work on, there are quite a few challenging bridge vocabulary concepts. Ask your student to tell you the three main bridge types Listen to your student explain the two types of forces we learned about (tension and compression) Extend the learning by watching the videos we watched as a family https://youtu.be/oVOnRPefcno https://youtu.be/5C3VG0RdNPo Please let me know if you have any questions or comments! |
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